Well, I don’t actually hate the process of losing weight. What I despise is the term itself, especially when used in relation to getting healthier. I despise even saying talking about how much weight I have lost. You may wonder why I’m so adamantly against this whole weight thing, but in my mind I have a very good reason, and it all comes down to physics.

Weight = mass * gravity

The problem I have is that this equation, this “definition” of weight, has absolutely nothing to do with health. I’ll explain by focusing on each variable, starting with gravity.

I have a problem with basing my health off something that not only isn’t even part of my body, but that I have absolutely zero control over. Gravity not only does not affect my health, but it is also not as constant as you may think (Check out this article about Weight on a mountain). Depending on where you are on the earth, your weight can change just because you changed location. If you live at the beach and want to lose some weight, just move to the mountains. That’s it. Weight-loss complete. Are you now healthier because the scale says you lost X lbs? Absolutely not.

So if we throw weight out as a health indicator because of gravity, we can just move back a step and focus on “Mass Loss” instead right? Wrong! Losing mass does not mean you are moving toward a healthier body either, and that is because the mass of your body is composed of many different things that you could reduce to cause a “Mass Loss.” Our bodies are composed of 57% – 60% of water on average. This means that if you decrease the amount of water you put in your body, you could experience a “Mass Loss.” Will this make you healthier. No, it will make you dehydrated. We could do the same thing with muscle, bone, fat, etc. Muscle loss is bad, bone loss is bad, but fat loss, that good, right? Well, it really depends. If 40% of your body is composed of fat, then yes, fat loss can be good, but if you are composed of 5% fat, then it may not hurt for your body to gain a little more. Despite what most people believe these days, our bodies need fat, just as they need water, protein, carbohydrates, etc. So if “Mass Loss” isn’t a good way to determine health either, what is?

Our bodies are incredibly complex creations, and I believe that relegating our health to one number, or even a series of numbers is not only unhealthy in itself, but it degrades the wonder that is the human body. When it comes to being healthy, instead of focusing on just our weight, fat percentage, BMI, waist measurement (among others) and whatever other numbers make you “feel” healthy, focus on your body. Believe it or not, when you are healthy, your body will let you know. Pay attention to how your body looks and feels, how your body is functioning (including your gut, muscles and brain), the amount of energy you have during the day, how well you sleep at night and even the foods that you crave. It’s still ok to weight yourself and take your measurements, but don’t let a number determine your health, because that number can very easily disappoint you. Your body is too marvelous to be summed up in a number.

I thought since it’s almost been two weeks since I started the Slim, I would post an update. Here are some things I have noticed so far.

The issues I have had with my gut have almost entirely disappeared. It has been a relatively short time, and I have had a couple occasions where my stomach has bothered me a little, but it has been NOTHING compared to what it way. Bloating is now coming occasionally and it goes away after a short amount of time instead of sticking around all day long. I’m thinking these changes are mainly an effect of the Probio and Biocleanse. It would make sense.

My body has become more “responsive” to what I put in it. A few weeks ago it wouldn’t matter what I ate, I would come away bloated, gassy and generally miserable. Now if I eat something my body doesn’t like, I may feel bad for a bit, but then it goes away. This leads me into the next point…

My tastes have changed. It seems to mainly be with fried foods, which I think everyone will agree are not the healthiest, but there are things I used to really enjoy that now don’t even sound that great to me. I’m not entirely sure if it’s because I know how those foods make me feel, or if I don’t like the taste anymore, but honestly it really doesn’t matter. The fact that it is now extremely easy for me to pass up a piece of cake, donut, fried chicken or even pizza is huge. I still don’t crave salads, but a steak and sweet potato, or maybe some Salmon and turnip greens sure does sound tasty!

I have not really lost any weight, but I would rather focus on what I have gained. I now have energy that lasts from when I get up until my body starts telling me it’s time for bed, along with a mental clarity that I have not experienced in a long, long time. I had been struggling lately with being able to focus on things while at work, but lately I have been able to sit down and just fly through stuff that normally would have had me staring at the screen. Oh, I also seem to be turning into the type of person that does not like dirty things (which I’m sure my wife will enjoy). That part isn’t 100% there, just like everything else, but I can feel it inside me. In fact, my cluttered desk is even starting to bother me right now, haha.

I am positive that weight loss will come, and a much of that confidence comes from the fact that I now actually feel like getting up and doing things. Also, when I do come in contact with physical activity now (even simply things like walking up a flight of stairs), I have found that it is so much easier than it was. It’s only a matter of time now before the fat starts disappearing!

So there you go. Almost two weeks in, and I am already becoming a new man. I’m really excited to see what the rest of February is going to bring!

Seriously, I had planned on getting our Plexus shipment Monday afternoon and starting the Slim yesterday morning since USPS had the 2-day shipping estimating it arriving on Monday, but alas, that estimated date magically changed to Tuesday. THEN when they did try to deliver it, no one was at home to sign for the package, so it spent the night in the post office. So close, yet so far. This morning, however, we were able to finally get our hands on the magical* Plexus products.

I had my first Slim just before I ate my breakfast (which may have been to close to eating) and even though I didn’t immediately notice a huge difference, it did seem to perk me up some. I didn’t even bother with coffee this morning either, and I love my morning coffee. Also, I found that I was able to easily down about 48 oz of water before lunch. I usually struggle to get that much down during the entire day! At lunch we had Checkers, which was probably one of the unhealthiest choices I could think of, and I could barely even drink the root beer I ordered (and I love root beer!). I’m not going to say that slim really had much to do with that though, since I’ve kind of been feeling indifferent toward sodas for a while now.

Anyway, while I was back in the office this afternoon I started to feel like I really wanted another Slim, so I mixed up another. I don’t think I mentioned that to me it tastes like some sort of cherry/pomegranate kool-aid, which is just about delicious. I mean, I wasn’t craving it because I wanted to feel better, I felt fine. I wanted to have that sweet nectar flowing over my taste buds! I really don’t think I have ever had any type of health supplement (including those chewy Flintstones vitamins) that tastes as good as this stuff. I can already tell I’m not going to be able to leave any in my desk drawer. I figure if I start craving it I can just fix me a cup of tea instead. Great excuse to start having afternoon tea time again I think.

So even after drinking slim twice today, I am not noticing a huge difference from how I normally feel, but honestly I wasn’t expecting a huge difference on day one. I am most interested to see how I feel next Wednesday, and whether or not my clothes fit any better after a few weeks. I’m not going to stress about “weight loss” because I hate using weight to determine health. It’s a bogus number that I don’t feel means a thing when it comes to a person’s actual health, and I get irritated when people put so much emphasis just on that one number… ugh. I’ll stop there before I really get off on a rant, and save that topic for another day. How I feel, how I sleep and my measurements will be my main focus over the next few weeks.

As a secondary topic, I am also going to try the Body Cream on some scars and other blemishes I have on my skin to see just how well it will help those areas. I do have before pictures ready to go if I notice any change, and I will definitely keep the world updated with those results as well as my slim/biocleanse/probio results. Oh, speaking of biocleanse and probio, my gut seems to continue to become happier each day. I’m not experiencing the horrible gas pains that I used to along with other things. Still not where I feel it should be, but it is better.

Ok, that’s enough of an update for today.

*I am in no way claiming that Plexus products are actually magical… even though they may sometimes feel that way 😉

Well, technically it doesn’t actually begin until tomorrow, but it kind of started last week. Our Plexus shipment should arrive sometime today, so I will start with the Slim in the morning, but I have to confess that I actually started the Biocleanse and ProBio last week. I was going to wait and start it all together, but I had just grown too tired of my intestines being in knots all the time. After one week, I can definitely notice a difference too. My gut hasn’t bothered me nearly as much! Score one for Plexus I suppose.

I will mention that yesterday morning I did feel pretty lousy. I was bloated and gassy, had a headache, some brain fog and just all around didn’t feel too well. Turns out, those are all symptoms of candida die off (if you don’t know what candida is, just think “bad stuff in your gut”). I felt better as the day moved along, but I just thought I would throw that in there.

So anyway, tomorrow I start in full force, and I wanted to take a moment to talk about myself before Plexus. I was not always overweight. It wasn’t until my senior year in High School that I started to notice the fat coming on, and through college it simply continued to pile on. It felt like I went from being fairly “skinny” to overweight almost overnight. I have been overweight for so long now that I can’t even remember what it felt like not to have all that fat hanging around. Over the years I have tried different ways to get rid of the fat (low calorie diet, low fat diet, WeightWatchers, Whole30, etc) and while I have been successful with some, nothing has really kept it off.

Now I don’t want to keep all of this just to weight-loss, because that is not my only issue. I have had acid reflux since High School, and over the past few years I have had intestinal problems that have occasionally been so bad that they have incapacitated me for hours. Not to mention heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and many other conditions run in my family. These are the things I want to be rid of or avoid all together.

Last night we took my before picture and also took my before measurements so I can have something to compare to as my Plexus experience progresses. Since I want to be as straightforward as I can, I am going to go ahead and post those now to not only document them, but to attempt to keep myself accountable. I am going to try to post updated numbers (and maybe photos) on a weekly basis as well.

Well I did not realize it has been a few months short of a year since I had posted anything to this blog. I guess it can be pretty easy to forget about things at times. Anyway, I have something new that I am excited about, and starting next week I am planning on posting much much more about it. For now, here’s a little preview.

My wife has started using health supplements from a company called Plexus, and so far they seem to have helped her out greatly. She has been a habitual nail biter since before we met, and since she started using Slim (a drink I will talk more about later) the nail biting has completely stopped. Not gotten better or even decreased some, it has stopped. She has also been taking medicine for anxiety for the past few years, and even with her medicine she would still have anxiety attacks, but once again, since Slim she has not had the first attack and she has not needed her medicine for a month now! That alone is enough to get me interested, but when you throw in the fact the the scale says she has lost 4 pounds since last week, that just puts a nice blob of buttercream icing on that already deliciously moist chocolate cake.

With all that said, starting sometime next week I will also be embarking on a journey toward a healthier me, and I will be using the same Plexus products my wife has used to see if they can help me get closer to where I want to be. After seeing what they have done for Hilary, and many other people, I am excited to see what they can do for me, and I will be documenting everything here on my blog.

As a side note I will mention that even though my wife is a Plexus Ambassador, and would be more than happy to sell to anyone who is interested, I will not be using these posts as “advertisements” to sell these products. If my posts do happen to get you interested in trying Slim or any other Plexus product you can definitely contact me, but that is not why I am doing this. Right now I just want to share my experience so that hopefully it will help other people.

One of my favorites before Whole 30, and still one that my taste buds just don’t want to let go of!

I would have thought my want for “bad” foods would be gone, or very close to it by now, but tonight we went to a gymnastics meet, and while there I got a whiff of pizza. It wasn’t even good pizza, but just that smell almost made me want to throw in the towel. I have done good sticking to the whole 30 the best I can for this long, but it seems sometimes that the only thing that keeps me from making less than stellar food choices is the fact that my desire to be healthy outweighs my desire to let my taste buds indulge in the meaty cheesy yumminess that is pizza (or whatever other “bad” food sounds good at the moment).

Another thing that almost forces me to make better decisions is our very small food budget. Whole 30 is taking a much bigger whack out of our money than I expected, although I knew it wouldn’t be cheap. We’ve made it this far, but I’m starting to wonder if we’ll be able to make it another week. There’s no shortage of choice when it comes to what you can eat on a Whole 30, but when you can only afford so much, the choice becomes limited. Very limited. I don’t know about everyone else, but even though I originally said I could eat eggs every day for every meal, they’re starting to get a little old. I know I can cook them differently, or spice them differently, and I have been (switched from scrambled with spinach and mushrooms to an omelette with onions and mushrooms the other day), but still… a nice slice of french toast with butter and some thick cane syrup sure would make my tongue dance with joy right now. The rest of me might not be dancing later, but my taste buds would rejoice.

At least that’s what they seem to be trying to tell me.

On the other hand, I know I’m losing weight because I don’t feel as big, my clothes are starting to loosen up a bit and most of the time my wedding ring slides very easily off my finger now. I also know that I feel better (aside from a few gas pains and other minor stomach issues that I can’t seem to figure out). I still don’t think I’ve quite got my sleeping in sync, but I do have more energy.

So I love the way I feel, and I love that I’m starting to finally drop some pounds, but I guess the real issue is that my body is starting to request more variety, and with the limited supply of food we can afford, I’m having a hard time coming up with that variety. I do know that the next time I do a Whole 30, there will be more planning, and hopefully a bigger budget. In the mean time I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and push through the best I can.

In addition to attempting to increase my knowledge and skills with various “Hobbies” this year, me and my wife are also embarking on what I hope will be an incredible journey. We are starting our journey toward becoming healthier. For me, part of that is a goal to lose 73 pounds in 2013. I know it will be tough at times, and down right hard other times, but I do feel like I’m finally ready to make the changes that need to be made for good. As much as I hate running right now, I want to be fit enough to run for miles. I do, however, enjoy riding my bike, and I want to be in good enough shape to use it as a car substitute. I want to be able to hike, to climb, to swim… all the things that currently wear me out too easily, I want them to become easy for me.

My want to be healthy isn’t just about doing more though, it’s about feeling better. I’ve have a few problems arise that I am sure are due to my weight, and I want those problems to be eradicated. I want to have more energy and I want to wake up every morning refreshed and excited to start another day. I want to actually be able to give people advice on losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle because I’ve experienced it myself, and not because of something I read.

Just like my hobbies, I want to increase my knowledge and skills in the area of healthy living. More exercise, healthier eating and just an overall healthy lifestyle are what I want, and I even hope that some of my “Hobbies” can be used to help us get where we want to be (couponing, gardening and hunting are just a few that come to mind). By the end of 2013 I don’t want to look back and just say that I am a different person than I was at the beginning of the year. I wan to be able to look back and say that I am closer to the person I was meant to be!

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